798 District Blog

WASHINGTON, DC.- The Smithsonian Latino Center opened its exhibition “Southern Identity: Contemporary Argentine Art” Oct. 11. The exhibition, organized with Argentina’s Secretariat of Culture, highlights 80 works by 32 living Argentine artists, including León Ferrari, Marta Minujín, Luis Felipe Noé, Nicola Constantino, Marcos López, Pablo Siquier and Marcia Schvartz. “Southern Identity: Contemporary Argentine Art” will be on view in the International Gallery of the Smithsonian’s S. Dillon Ripley Center through Jan. 23, 2011.

The bilingual exhibition presents an overview of the major movements and trends in Argentina’s national art scene since 1948 and is organized in four sections featuring political art, landscapes, national identities and abstraction. It is the largest survey of Argentine contemporary art ever organized in the United States and includes paintings, drawings, sculptures, video art, photography and prints representing the work of artists working in Buenos Aires and throughout Argentina’s provinces. The exhibition’s curators are Alberto Petrina, national director of patrimony and museums, and Andrés Duprat, director of visual arts; both are from Argentina’s Secretariat of Culture.
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HAMBURG.- Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938), founding member of the Die Brücke (The Bridge) artists group in Dresden, Germany 1905, is among the most influential artist personalities in German classical Modernism. A trailblazer for Expressionist art, he succeeded in creating some of the most innovative formal solutions of his day – particularly as a printmaker. The exhibition at the Hamburger Kunsthalle features a representative overview of the most significant phases in Kirchner’s creative development: the early work showing studio and street scenes of Dresden and Berlin, work created during summer stays on the Baltic Sea island Fehrmarn and the later work in Davos. The exhibition itself centers primarily on paintings from the Kunsthalle’s own collection along with selected loans, all works indisputably regarded as the high point of Kirchner’s oeuvre as a painter. For the first time, these paintings will be shown in a context that includes their preliminary sketches – most of them on loan from private collections – print graphics showing similar motifs and the artist’s photographs as an integrative whole. The multi format presentation offers visitors a fascinating opportunity: Looking at the originals, one can follow Kirchner’s creative process from the first fleeting idea in sketches to the final painting.

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VIENNA.- Between 8 October 2010 and 9 January 2011, the Albertina presents the first major Michelangelo exhibition in more than twenty years. This display of 120 out of the artist’s most precious drawings offers a comprehensive insight into the work of this great genius. The sheets come from the Albertina’s own holdings, as well as from important European and American museums – the Uffizi and the Casa Buonarroti in Florence, the Louvre in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Teylers Museum in Haarlem, the Royal Library in Windsor Castle (property of the British monarch) and the British Museum in London – and private collections.

The exhibition spans from Michelangelo’s earliest surviving drawings, his designs for the Battle of Cascina, and his studies for the vault frescoes and The Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel to the refined drawings the artist presented to Tommaso de’Cavalieri and a number of late treatments of the Crucifixion.

Michelangelo’s drawings will be juxtaposed to examples of works by artists from the master’s immediate surroundings (Giulio Clovio, Sebastiano del Piombo, and Daniele da Volterra), which is meant to demonstrate how clearly Michelangelo’s drawings distinguish themselves in terms of style and ingenuity.

It was three years ago that curator Dr Achim Gnann began his preparations for this exhibition. His goal is to review those datings of Michelangelo’s drawings that have sometimes been considered controversial and elaborate on the evolution of the artist’s style with utmost clarity.

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STOCKHOLM.- On 2 October, Moderna Museet opened the new edition of The Moderna Exhibition, its recurring inventory of the most interesting recent developments in Swedish contemporary art. The Moderna Exhibition 2010 features 54 artists, 28 women and 26 men, who have made a strong impact on the Swedish art scene. Most of the works have never been exhibited to Swedish audiences, and more than half of the works have been produced specifically for this exhibition.

The Moderna Exhibition is held every four years and is intended as an overview of Swedish contemporary art. The 2010 edition acknowledges that the heterogeneity of our era is also reflected in art. Consequently, The Moderna Exhibition 2010 does not have one single theme, nor does it propose that there is any technique or style that defines the current art scene. Instead, the exhibition highlights mutually enhancing disparities and gives viewers examples of what relevant artistic work can involve today: from various forms of documentary projects, explorations of painting and sculpture, to artistic research at universities.

“However, we have identified four different contexts where the roads of the 54 artists intersect: images of Sweden, discussions about authorship and narration, revisiting modernist formal idioms, and the ethereal and spiritual. Altogether, this represents what we consider to be the most interesting expressions of Swedish art right now”, says Fredrik Liew, curator of the Moderna Exhibition.
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NEW YORK— For five years, Metropolitan Museum of Art curator James Watt has worked with a team of scholars and administrators to arrange loans of works from China, Russia, Taiwan, Japan, and different parts of America for “The World of Khubilai Khan: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty,” which opens to the public today.

The exhibition, which presents more than 200 objects and works of art, including paintings, sculptures, textiles, and ceramics, covers a period of incredible dynamism and experimentation in Chinese culture, stretching from 1215, the year in which the famed Mongol leader and eventual Chinese emperor Khubilai Khan was born, until 1368, when the Yuan Dynasty fell.

Organized into four separate thematic sections, the show presents works that relate to the daily lives of Chinese people of the time, images associated with religious practices, revolutionary examples of painting and calligraphy, and a wide selection of pieces from the decorative arts.

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SAO PAULO.- Ai Weiwei’s Zodiac Heads/Circle of Animals installation opened at the 29th Sao Paulo Biennale in Brazil. The Biennale opened on September 25th and drew large crowd of art aficionados from all across the globe. The Zodiac Heads/Circle of Animals is the centerpiece of a global, multi-year touring exhibition that will be presented in the United States, Europe, and Asia.

The 29th São Paulo Biennial is curated by Moacir dos Anjos and Agnaldo Farias and a team of guest curators from various backgrounds: Fernando Alvim, Rina Carvajal, Yuko Hasegawa, Sarat Maharaj, and Chus Martinez

The title of the this years Biennale, “Há sempre um copo de mar para um homem navegar (There is always a cup of sea to sail in)” was inspired by a line by the poet Jorge de Lima (1895 – 1953) in his work Invenção de Orfeu (1952). The concept of this year’s São Paulo Biennial is based on the notion that it is impossible to separate art from politics. Art, through ways of its own, is “capable of blocking the sensorial coordinates through which we understand and inhabit the world by bringing into it themes and attitudes that did not previously fit in, thus making it different and wider.”

In this sense the title “There is Always a Cup of Sea to Sail in” epitomizes the curators’ intentions, asserting the utopian dimension of art. According to them: “It is in the ‘cup of sea’ – or in this near infinite in which artists insist on producing their works – where in fact lies the power to move forward, despite everything else.” As the author of the poem Jorge de Lima continues, “the power to sail on even without ships / even without waves and sand.”
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FLORENCE.- Agnolo di Cosimo, known as Bronzino (1503-1572), was one of the greatest artists in the history of Italian painting. Court artist to Cosimo I de’ Medici (1519-1574), his work embodied the sophistication of the Mannerist style. Bronzino. Artist and Poet at the Court of the Medici, on view at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence from 24 September 2010 to 23 January 2011, will be the very first exhibition devoted to his painted work. Bronzino conveyed the elegance of the Medici court in his work with “naturalness” and, at the same time, austere beauty.

Florence is the perfect setting for a monographic exhibition on Bronzino. The son of a butcher, not only was he born and died here, the city houses some of his greatest masterpieces, particularly in the Uffizi but also in other museums and churches. This landmark exhibition, with loans from the world’s most important museums, presents presents 63 works attributed to Bronzino, and 10 to Bronzino and his workshop, along with others by his master Pontormo, with whom he had close ties throughout his life. Bronzino’s paintings, with their sculptural definition, will be shown alongside sculptures by such 16th century masters as Benvenuto Cellini, Tribolo, Baccio Bandinelli and Pierino da Vinci, who were his friends and with whom he exchanged sonnets. The exhibition concludes with a number of works by Alessandro Allori, his favourite pupil.
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LONDON.- Christie’s announce an exciting series of public exhibitions, events and auctions from 10 October to 18 October in London coinciding with the Frieze Art Fair. The week will be highlighted by the Post-War & Contemporary Evening Auction and The Italian Sale on 14 October at 6.30pm, which will offer 51 and 45 lots accordingly and which will include an extremely strong section of photography, and the most important work by Damien Hirst to be offered at auction since September 2008 (estimate: £2.5 million to £3.5 million).

Francis Outred, Head of Post-War & Contemporary art, Christie’s Europe : “Every year in October in London, the Frieze art fair gathers art lovers from around the world for one of the most enthusiastic and vibrant celebrations of Contemporary art. This year we will be opening our salerooms and presenting one of our busiest and most accessible ever weeks of events, public exhibitions and sales; from the evening auction of Post-War & Contemporary art and Italian art, to highlights from the forthcoming season of sales in New York and the ‘Multiplied’ print fair hosted at South Kensington, there will be art to see, admire and buy from under £100 to over £3 million.”

POST-WAR & CONTEMPORARY EVENING AUCTION
Exhibition: 10 to 14 October
Auction: 14 October at 6.30pm
The highlight of the week, the Post-War &Contemporary Evening Auction will offer 51 lots with a combined estimate of £15,950,000 to £22,710,000. The auction is led by I am become death, shatterer of worlds, the largest sized butterfly painting to have been executed by Damien Hirst (b.1965). The most important work by the artist to be offered at auction since Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, the artist’s solo auction in London in September 2008, it is expected to realise £2.5 million to £3.5 million. Over 5 metres wide, the title reflects the words uttered by J. Robert Oppenheimer following the detonation of the Atomic bomb.

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MUNICH.- The Kunstmuseum Bern (Museum of Fine Arts) is Switzerland’s oldest art museum with a permanent collection. This autumn, over 150 masterpieces from this institution are on show at the Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung (Hypo Cultural Foundation) in Munich. The selected paintings, drawings and sculptures were created by more than 60 Swiss artists. Thus, these works not only represent the Kunstmuseum’s collection but also reflect the development of art in our neighbouring country.

In looking back over seven centuries, is it possible to detect a specific quality that is unique to Switzerland? Can certain themes or artistic expressions be detected within this countries art production? How can one define a national, a Swiss art? Can this be found in works by artists who, although they were born in Swiss cantons, spent their lives elsewhere, achieving glory from beyond the borders of their home country? In the same way, surely one should show the works of those artists who worked in Switzerland and set a precedent there, even if they never received a Swiss passport? The exhibition poses such questions and, with a plethora of masterpieces, permits the visitor to see “Swiss Art” in a new light.

The exhibition begins with altarpieces dating from the 15th century, a time when the Swiss achieved independence from the Holy Roman Empire. Portraits from the 16th to the 18th century bear witness to the dominant influence of Protestantism within the Alpine republic. Majestic mountain panoramas reflect the concept of a national state as glorified in Schiller’s “Wilhelm Tell” (1804) and that was recognised under international law in 1848. Rooms dedicated to individual artists from Albert Anker via Karl Stauffer-Bern to Ferdinand Hodler illustrate an independent artistic development that also met with recognition beyond the Swiss border, to enter the international stage with the Giacometti family, Paul Klee and Jean Tinguely. Finally, artists like Franz Gertsch, Diether Roth, Daniel Spoerri or Pipilotti Rist set a contemporary tone.

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BERLIN.- Haunch of Venison Berlin presents ‘Das Gift,’ a radical new installation by Yoko Ono. The exhibition opens 10 September and continues through 13 November 2010.

Yoko Ono’s installation ‘Das Gift’ consists of sculptural, sound, film, and instruction-based participatory elements, which have been conceived specifically for this exhibition.

Ono’s pioneering work with conceptual art and instruction-based work began in the 1950s. In 1964, she published the groundbreaking collection of these works, titled Grapefruit. This conceptualism is an underlying force of this exhibition. Through characteristically varied means, Ono addresses violence, healing, transformation, love, and questions the dichotomy of the personal and the global.

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